The proposed amendment to the Health and Safety at Work Act remedies a longstanding omission where workers in small businesses did not have the same rights as other workers to have health and safety representatives or committees if they wanted to have them.
The change means that workers in any sized business are able to have a real say in their workplace’s health and safety management and practices.
In our submission the NZCTU outlines the critical role that worker engagement, participation and representation plays in keeping workers safe at work, and best practice processes found in the legislation need to be extended to workers in all businesses.
The NZTU further argues that any foreseeable costs to small businesses in establishing worker engagement systems is heavily outweighed by the reductions in costs through avoiding harm and near misses, and the creation of more productive practices arising from the input of workers.